Conscious Choice: Your Body’s Connection to the Higher Mind

August 2004 | Body & Mind Health

Your Body’s Connection to the Higher Mind

by Julia Mossbridge

I spend a lot of time in my mind, thinking about new ideas, wondering about old ones, and trying to form bridges between old and new thoughts. I love every moment of this kind of mind-dance, which must be why the idea of a “Higher Mind” has always appealed to me. I first heard this phrase probably about a decade ago, and was told that it referred to some sort of non-personal, universal, God-like Mind.

“Just think,” I thought, “access to a Higher Mind would offer expanded vistas of mysterious new ideas, ripe for my exploration!” Trying to get this special access, I spent years in therapy, meditation, and every form of “mind work” I heard about. Despite the value of the work I did, I still craved the insights that communication with a Higher Mind seemed to promise.

Like many academics and other mind-centered folks, I pretty much assumed that my body was simply a support system for my brain. So it was only when I began paying careful attention to how I felt after I’d done some body work — yoga, tai chi, dance, or chiropractic, for example — that I realized it was actually my body, not my brain, that allowed me access to the Higher Mind.

With this realization, my mind snapped into gear and asked: “Exactly how do we use our bodies to connect to the Higher Mind?” Pondering this question for several hours, I leaned my head on my hand in a Thinker-esque pose, which sent me to my chiropractor. I took the opportunity to ask her about this Body-as-connection-to-Higher-Mind idea.

In a conversation with Dr. Liz (www.chiropractic1st.com), I drew a blob that I labeled “Higher Mind,” then a blob I labeled “Healer” and another blob that was the “Patient.” I asked her to draw the connections between the three, as she saw them. She drew a double-arrowed line between Higher Mind and the Healer, another double-arrowed line between the Healer and the Patient, and a dotted double-arrowed line between the Patient and the Higher Mind. What did this mean?

Dr. Liz explained, “I use my connection with the Higher Mind to get information that I can then use to ask questions of the patient’s body. The patient’s body answers me, and I use my connection back to the Higher Mind in order to understand the answers. The process makes my connection as well as the patient’s connection with the Higher Mind more solid over time.”

I still didn’t entirely get it, so she went on. “It’s all about receptivity — of body and mind — and the sharing of information is what facilitates that. Sharing this information between the Higher Mind and my patients’ bodies creates an awareness, an acceptance, and a sense of self-trust. What follows from that shift is that people make better decisions: They sleep better, study in a more focused way, eat better, and exercise more consistently. Their intuition becomes clear, because the link with the Higher Mind becomes stronger.”

The idea that our bodies offer us excellent tools for connecting with a Higher Mind was not lost on native cultures. The esoteric wisdom of Polynesia, called “Huna” (www.huna.org) seems to put things in a more body-centered form altogether. Huna teaches that each individual has at least three bodies: the Lower Body, the Middle Body, and the Higher Body.

In the more Western, mind-centered cultures, the three body-levels have been equated with the ideas of the subconscious, conscious, and super-conscious (Higher Mind). The problem with this equation is that it’s not completely accurate. The three levels come through, but the “body” component is entirely lost. It seems to me that if we were created in God’s image, which is taught by many traditions, then this God-like Higher Mind must also have a Higher Body, as Huna teaches. If we forget about God’s body, it seems understandable that we would also pass over our own bodies as possible tools for spiritual connection.

I feel (not think!) it’s time to retrain myself. The power of my body has been clearly revealed to me — I want to nourish this power and let it show me more about how to connect.

But as I write about the power of my body, my mind is not pleased. It feels slighted, I guess. My mind kindly, but insistently, requests just a little footnote, reminding everyone that without our minds, our bodies can’t do anything. But I will not give in! Instead, using my two feet, I will stand my ground; with my arms, I will reach for connection; and with my heart, I will feel God.

Julia Mossbridge, a Chicago-based writer, is also a mother, cognitive neuroscientist and author of Unfolding: The Perpetual Science of Your Soul’s Work (New World Library, www.unfolding.org).

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